February 23, 2004

BEAT-UP OF THE WEEK

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration ...

The only people likely to be humiliated by this are the Observer’s reporters and editors, and everyone who’s fallen for the Observer’s line. Among them, Australia’s SBS:

Britain’s Observer newspaper said the report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon adviser but was covered up by "US defence chiefs" for four months, until the paper "obtained" it.

The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and military policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

When scientists' work on abrupt climate change popped onto his radar screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter Schwartz, to write a report on the national-security implications of the threat.

Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group and has since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to DreamWorks—he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven Spielberg's film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug Randall at the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, a scenario-planning think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate experts and pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy away from—at least in public.

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn't pretend to be a forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario to help planners think about coping strategies.

This is very much in the spirit of thinking the unthinkable. The report that we put together for the Pentagon is an extreme scenario, in the sense that most climatologists would say that this is low probability, in the sense of it happening soon, and as pervasively. But it is the Pentagon's job to think about many cases, the worst-case scenario.

Why is this report big news? Because it is being presented as a Pentagon report. Which it isn’t.

UPDATE III. According to lying Greenpeace, the report is evidence of the “Pentagon itself agreeing that global warming is a greater threat than terrorism.”

UPDATE IV. From today’s Sydney Morning Herald: “A secret report prepared by the Pentagon warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater risk than terrorism ...”

Posted by Tim Blair at February 23, 2004 01:07 PM

Comments

More than that, it's a report for the Pentagon to prepare for the possibility that this could happen, which ACTUALLY means they're giving it some credibility.

Isn't that what they want? But I guess "The Pentagon Under the Bush Administration Prepares For Remote Possibly of Global Warming Catasrophe" is a lame headline...

Peter Schwartz is a well-known futurist quack, the author of The Art of The Long View and The Long Boom and other inspirational texts of the dotcom boom. He's been putting out these laughing gas-filled balloons of implausibility for years. It's a wonder he has any credibility anymore, especially with the Pentagon.

If the report is true then it is predicting a drop in temperature. I wish the supporters of Kyoto could make up thier minds. One day we are freezing the next the earth is heating up. I guess this may mean the earths weather is not that predictable but I could have told everyone that. Maybe I should get a fat tax payer funded grant to air my observations on how accurate weather forecasts are.

What it is: a highly speculative report on the potential developments in global security due to extreme climate change.

What is is not: a study by either the CIA or anyone else that extreme climate change is a certainty.

What the kooks want it to be #1: a conclusive study by the CIA that proves extreme climate change is likely.

What the kooks want it to be #2: proof that "they" "know" "the truth" and are covering it up.

It's really quite simple, even for things which are unlikely it is important to prepare for them as best you can. A good comparison might be earthquake drills in a city. These do not mean that the city has somehow come up with a new way to predict earthquakes and one is happening next month (so they better be prepared), it only means that they are trying to be prepared for something which may or may not happen. As to why there are large groups of people who eagerly keep their ears cocked for the sound of the death knell of civilization, I really would not like to speculate. Though in general I think it might be a variant of the recurring phenomena of doomsday cults of various flavors.

A Pentagon "report" is no big deal. Wait until they spend millions and set up actual units with trained personnel, like they did with the psychics. (Check out these secret documents on Remote Viewing obtained by the Dorkafork Intelligence Monitor. See, psychics are real!)

Do these numbnuts realize the Pentagon has contingency plans for virtually any imaginable scenario, even for the possiblity of fighting the Royal Navy, and has for over a century? (Sadly, Jihadis flying airliners into skyscrapers was not among them.)

Had they been there, I can only imagine their panic over Orson Welles' infamous War Of The Worlds radio broadcast.

This was first reported by Fortune Magazine; the paper in question was made available to Fortune by Andrew Marshall, the consultant who commissioned it.

The paper was *not* made available to the press by Pentagon or Bush Admin officials, who would certainly have preferred that it not receive any publicity.

Marshall (who is in his eighties, and who has no need to worry about his future career prospects) apparently made the report available to Fortune Magazine in order to "get the word out".

While the Observer's reporting is definitely shrill and "over the top", the report's conclusions that the possibility of a major climate shift in the near future, while small, is large enough that we should prepare for it.

The notion of an abrubt climate shift as a response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is gaining scientific currency; it should not be dismissed out of hand for wing-nut ideological reasons. For more information about this, check out the Woods Hole Oceanographic institute web-site material about abrupt climate-shift at http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ct_abruptclimate.htm

I'll tell you what would cause abrupt change - a meteorite half a kilometer in diameter.

If the enviro-nutz are so concerned about saving the planet, why don't they show more concern about the potential threat from asteroids, planetoids and comets?

This threat is a proven fact. The planet is spotted with the scars of past encounters, and some contend that the Earth is over due for the next big rock.

The only chance for survival with the threat of meteorites is in locating and cataloging all objects that could cross Earths path. Then once such an object is found, science will then need to develop a way to nudge it in a different direction.

Oh sorry, but no the enviro-nutz don't like that idea, because that involves technological development that might pollute and less money spent on preserving the habitat of owls and tree frogs.

Sorry, I digressed - until I see that global averages have increased at a rate higher than three-quarters of degree (F) per century.

Barrng that, the only other thing that will convince me that anthropogenic global warming is real is when I see a regional trend - no less than 5 years - where each season is warmer than the one that preceeded it.

This was first reported by Fortune Magazine; the paper in question was made available to Fortune by Andrew Marshall, the consultant who commissioned it.

The paper was *not* made available to the press by Pentagon or Bush Admin officials, who would certainly have preferred that it not receive any publicity.

Did you even read the excerpt that Tim posted, caerbannog? Let's try again:

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE.

I suppose Fortune must be lying about who shared the paper with them, and they're in on the whole "suppressing the truth" deal, despite them being the first to publish information about it.
Posted by: Zeyes at February 23, 2004 at 04:38 PM

I wonder if Greenpeace missed the part about geo-engineering in the report. But I guess any alternative to reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions wouldn't fit Greenpeace's ideological agenda.

Just wait until the Observer stumbles onto the report being suppressed by the Austrialian intellegence organisations. It predicts a world in the near future ruled by violent highway gangs where petroluem is in short supply. My sources tell me the video document is titled 'Mad Max'.

Reminds me of some English tabloid that published an article claiming they had uncovered a SECRET blueprint for American world domination. Turns out they were talking about the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) which is openly published on the internet and can be found by anyone who can master a Google search.

I was wondering the same thing, Paul Johnson. It's certainly one of the worst examples of media distortion I've seen in a while.
Of course, the usual focus of Media Watch is Australian material - though at the time of the Iraq war they devoted a lot of time to trashing the coverage by the Murdoch media. So maybe this report in the Observer could do with a similar treatment.

So they have been measuring temperature to varying exactness for about 350 to 400 years. Now we are expected to believe that someone has detected a shift of a fraction of a degree during this century? And this is out of the norm compared to what?
Narrow field of choices; 17, 18, 19,or 2000's - I'm betting that they didn't write up their measures or average them over a global network of sites back in the 1700's or 1800's .
SO what we are left with, is that it is 2/3rds of a degree warmer (or is it cooler?) now, then it was back in 1900.

I plan on getting an extra stick of firewood next year. Either that, or opening the window.

To quote Michael Crichton
Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free.

The end of the world and the Bush Administration in the same article. What would they do without him?

What the vast majority of the Environmental lobby seem unable (deliberately?) to grasp is that those who are sceptical about spending vast amounts of money on fantasies like Kyoto, do not often dispute climate change or that it is potentially a serious issue for the future development of mankind. What they dispute is that a) it is necessarily 'man-made', and b) that spending huge resources on cutting greenhouse gas emissions etc, probably to the exclusion of spending money devising future strategies to cope with it when it happens, is either an effective or indeed a reasonable response.

As for the Observer, anyone with any experience of reading it will know that quoting Pentagon 'reports' is hardly a new phenomena - watch out for the next time the US takes military action when there will be the usual front page exclusive about how they plan to use nuclear/substitute alarming sounding weapons here.

Der Spiegel played this up the same way in the German media. The got off on how the Gulf Stream was going to collapse and Europe would be submerged in a new ice age. Ah, what happened to Global Warming? And how this would be bad for the US? With Spiegel, it's always how it's bad for the US. Amazing.

"The paper was *not* made available to the press by Pentagon or Bush Admin officials, who would certainly have preferred that it not receive any publicity."

So, in the future, the Pentagon not sending all commissioned contingency planning studies of remote possibilities directly to the Guardian for publication will be considered "suppression"?
Just trying to keep my newspeak dictionary up to date here...

Sounds suspiciously like a wing-nut. Ignore references to credible scientific material due to dictates of ones political ideology.

If the enviro-nutz are so concerned about saving the planet...

Yep -- definitely a wing-nut. The wing-nut-speak gives it away. Probably one of those Kansans who tried to get his favorite creation-myth slipped into Kansas public school science classes not too terribly long ago...

Zeyes said

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE.

OK, if the "Pentagon" shared the report, who besides Andrew Marshall has acknowledged on the record that the report even exists?

(Yes, I know that the report is unclassified, and was intended for internal use only, but if the Pentagon really agreed to share this report with Fortune, senior Pentagon officials would have gone of the record to acknowledge the *existence* of the report, even if to disagree with its speculative findings).

Looking at Dwayne's data, it looks to me that the dip in temperature coincides with heavy industrialization. Maybe the drop in temperature was caused by particulate polution (smog). Since that was cleaned up when they discovered it killed people, now the temperature is recovering to normal.

Al, I was about to say that it looks to me like the rise of really good cental heating in large cities combined with not-so-hot insulation. I.e. heat leakage from housing. Beginning in the 1960's *lots* of people in large cities could afford to really crank up the ole heat, and they did. Many times in older housing that wasn't to weather-tight. Just as plausible. Where were the thermometers located for these data? I'd love to see some from about 50 miles away from each city.

As with the meteorite threat mentioned above, magnetic pole reversal is a more verifiable problem than the so-called greenhouse effect. Try Googling "magnetic pole reversal" and note that the Guardian itself (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,837058,00.html) has recognized this issue. Funny how this factor in climate change doesn't get mentioned.

Environmentalists, however, do not talk about this issue at all. Perhaps this is because there is no anti-American spin (no physics pun intended) that can be generated from it. There is simply nothing we can do about this physical phenomenon.

Dwayne,
You have to realize that it doesn't matter what the evidence is. We CAN'T TAKE THE CHANCE regarding global warning. Technology = Evil. I'm waiting for the USS Michael Moore to make a new documentary called "Luddite This!!" or "Dude, Where's My Feet?" or something factual regarding this topic.
Best regards,
Bob/Houston,Texas
Home of George Bush, the Sarumen of the evil energy empire.

No anti-American spin can be generated yet because our Magneto-Reversometer(TM) is still stalled in the preliminary design phase; we are behind because we have run into problems with the Earthquake Generator(TM) and all resources are currently allocated there...

Dwayne wrote
So, pollution is causing cooling, er, no, warming, er, I mean, warming in some spots and cooling in others. As opposed to the status quo of some places being warmer/cooler than others.

As Dwayne is so fond of GISS data, maybe he should chew on this, especially (para 1) ..it is the changes at the regional and local level that people will actually feel. These can sometimes be quite different from global average changes.

IMHO Global Warming is utter nonsense for the simple reason that the cumulation of all pollution produced by humankind for the last 5,000 years doesn't not even come close to matching the pollution produced by erupting **volcanoes** during that same time period.

The problem with the Global Warming alarmists is that they don't have any realistic solutions to the problem they are touting. Does anybody really think rolling back the industrial revolution is feasible?

There is evidence that the climate warms and cools in response to the number of sunspots. Maybe we can send environmentalists to the sun on a diplomatic mission.

Their doomsday scenario reminds me of an earlier doomsday scenario by [I think it was] the Club of Rome, back in the 60s or so, that foresaw the collapse of civilization mainly because the world couldn't produce enough to support the growing population.

Reports of the collapse of civilization have been greatly exaggerated.

I would treat this report as I would any other from a group of bright guys who spend a lot of their time thinking about the future: let's see what they have to say, and send it on to other bright guys to see what they have to say.

Meanwhile, the Middle East got its worst snowstorm in about 50 years. Doubtless, only a local effect, and not enough evidence to cast doubt on the global warming theory.

It's not just right-wingnuts (I love how often people decide the correct way to react to percieved ideological bias is to respond in kind) that have issues with anthropogenic global warming. I'm a card-carrying Sierra Club type of the sort who looks at Fish and Wildlife reports with a furrowed brow and won't eat gill-net caught fish, and I have plenty.

For one, there've been climate shifts throughout not only global but human history that have been quite a bit more extreme to one end of the scale or the other. There was, for example, a mini-Ice Age during the Middle Ages that seems to have been responsible for killing off a significant portion of the population of Europe. Nothing to do with human activity whatsoever, the earth's climate is just plain changeable. Plenty of geologists who study climate history long-term think that we're going to have maybe fifty, a hundred years more of warming, then we're due for a big cooling trend.

For another, most of the global warming predictions depend on all relevant variables continuing as they are now, which is completely laughable given how many variables there are and how prone to change they are and have been in the past. Global climate is very, very complicated, and depends on a hell of a lot more than human-generated C02.

For yet another, we don't understand the weather. We famously cannot make an accurate five-day forecast, and even accounting for much less specificity I have a hard time buying a five-year forecast, much less fifty.

It's not just the data, it's how it's interpreted. And frankly, the scientists responsible for climate research are under massive pressure to give predictions and conclusions based on data that cannot possibly justify them. In order to have truly credible climate forecast research, you need massive more amounts of temperature data and above all TIME to understand the Earth's patterns and the way the system works.

But nobody wants to hear "Ask again in a hundred years, and please give us a hundred billion to work with, if you would."

Strangely enough, for us in the US I believe it's been unusually warm over the passed 400 years. I think we're actually due for a big cool down. Bring on the global warming. (Winters were likely much worse for the pilgims.)

I say, I'll risk it and live with the threat of global warming. Though,I'll feel silly with the oversized fridge for the backyard I've ordered as my anti-global warming house,should it remain unoccupied. Hmmmn: I shall make every effort to bring on global warming, burn more electricity, concrete the paddock over, keep bonfires going round the clock,eat a couple of tons more meat per annum to help induce increases in herds of methane emitters , sheep, cattle, pigs.Burn gas station's worth of petrol by the day. Have I omitted anything?

Re: Contingency Plans : There were a number of plans dealing with Jihadis flying planes into skyscrapers. The usual scenario was a Cargo plane (singular) crewed by some religious nutcases (think Aum Shin Rikyo). What caught everyone (well me, anyway) by surprise was the number of simultaneous attacks, and the use of fully-fuelled transcontinental passenger planes.
We (at least I) thought that this was too difficult to do, with too small a result: the same effort, placed elsewhere, could have been far more destructive. I won't go into details (no sense giving anyone ideas), but 9/11 could have been, in fact should have been, a lot worse, given the planning and resources that went into it. We didn't exactly dodge the bullet - 3000+ deaths is no flesh wound either - but one or even two orders of magnitude worse would have been achievable, had they thought about it.
And there's not a whole lot we could have done about it, without the Draconian rules and regs put in place since then. There's still a lot of nightmares we have little defence against, even now. We're relying on a "pro-active" defence, aggressively pursuing the money-men and the individual action cells, while leaving ourselves open in order not to compromise too much our personal freedoms. It's a risk. So far, it's paid off. If it continues to do so, the people who make the decisions will be heroes (not that anyone will know or care). If not, they'll be lynched, either at the ballot box or in some Congressional or Parliamentary witch-hunts, probably a decade or more after the event.
But we have closed some gates, often with little or no publicity. Case in point: the increased surveillance of commercial shipping to/from points-of-interest (read North Korea) which has found both large quantities of drugs as well as the nuclear material we were after.
Our water supplies remain safe. No LPG tankers have detonated in ports. There's been no smallpox outbreaks, and apart from isolated and usually natural bird-flu, anthrax etc pockets no large-scale diseases have hit our food supplies.
There have been less than 100,000 civilian casualties in the War on Terror so far. Not tens of Millions.

Their doomsday scenario reminds me of an earlier doomsday scenario by [I think it was] the Club of Rome, back in the 60s or so, that foresaw the collapse of civilization mainly because the world couldn't produce enough to support the growing population.

Yeah, the 80s were supposed to see massive famines, food riots, the collapse of civilization, etc. I think it was the inspiration for a lot of the apocalyptic movies in the late 70s and the 80s...

It's a good example of the kind of garbage you get when you have very smart people working from flawed assumptions. I suspect something similar is going on with the global warming stuff, largely because the computer models they're using to predict future climate changes don't do a very good job of 'predicting' past conditions when fed historical data- to me, that indicates that the models aren't very good.

Anyone who expects me to support spending billions because of a crap computer model isn't getting my vote.

"... Hmmmn: I shall make every effort to bring on global warming, burn more electricity, concrete the paddock over, keep bonfires going round the clock,eat a couple of tons more meat per annum to help induce increases in herds of methane emitters , sheep, cattle, pigs.Burn gas station's worth of petrol by the day. Have I omitted anything?"

SUV. You have to get a SUV. Six litres minimum, seven preferred, three tonnes. With air conditioning. And DRIVE the sucker. Every day.

Yes, I know, it's expensive, but we all have to make sacrifices to make the world better. What with the exchange rate changes, maybe you could look into getting an American one. Ford's Excursion should be a real bargain. I don't know if they have a right-hand-drive model or not, but it's worth a check, eh?

I've added the SUV to my shopping list Ric. Perhaps schools can be supplied with them too, several hundred each: children can learn to drive, all day every day at school : bonus, fuel dumps can be installed in playground - courtesy of the Victorian govt. children don't need them for greeny friendly wuss stuff like playing ball anymore. And speed boats, rowing is a bloody awful business, just supply a fuel guzzling water machine with seating for cox and `rowers'.

Seems like a bit of scenario planning being taken for gospel. Not the first time that's happened.

Putting it in perspective, well of course climate change is a worse threat than terrorism. So is disease and so is hunger. It's a statement of the bleeding obvious.

I suppose you RWDBs wouldn't be arguing that we should ignore the threats of climate change until they're IMMINENT, would you? Don't you think we should engage in the odd pre-emptive strike based on the intelligence we have to hand?

After all, if it turns out not to be a threat at all, I'm sure you could live with yourselves, given your experience with phantom threats.

Trouble is, the `intelligence', Nemesis, is built on a pile of shit.
As for hunger and disease, they are preventable.The former by free markets and retstrained govts. take Zimbabwe for example, ring a bell, mass starvation looming up fast. North Krea -it's too late. Disease - you should spit on the greenies, for example on the matter of DDT.

Now when chlorofluorocarbons are introduced to the stratosphere, they decompose after colliding with short-wavelength ultraviolet rays. Chlorofluorocarbons uses the UV radiation to shed chlorine atoms, which will in turn combine with the ozone molecules. This will result in oxygen molecules and chlorine monoxide molecules. Then in a secondary reaction, the chlorine monoxide molecules revert back to a free oxygen atom and chlorine atom.

Those that espouse the "ozone hole theory" speculate that in spite of the presence of UV radiation, this one free chlorine atom will break apart up to 100,000 other ozone molecules without those oxygen molecules turning back into ozone.

I don't understand how that happens - any answers?

Another thing, if the short-wavelength ultraviolet energy the ozone is supposed to "absorb" then why is it not absorbed in the reaction with chlorofluorocarbons also?

As well, if ozone is created with short-wavelength ultraviolet energy from the sun, what makes us think that the two parts of the planet shrouded in darkness nearly six months of the year wouldn't have some ozone depletion?

I'm not a chemist and I didn't go to college, but I sat down and studied what I could on the subject. I came away with big questions and I'd like to have answers to my questions.

Dwayne, I'm still trying to figure out how Nemesis manages to post comments with his head rammed up his rectum like that. My latest theory is he has a Braille keyboard that he has trained himself to type on with his toes.

I got nuthin' on that ozone thing, though. But I do recall thinking, some years back, that the huge scare about the increase in skin cancer was surely due not to humans getting Thor's Sky-Shield all dirty with their pollution, but to the fact that sunbathing had become widespread over the decades among melanin-deprived Europeans. (Historically, up until at least the late nineteenth century I believe, sun-exposure was considered a hazard of outdoor labor, and thus déclassé for those who wished to be or were members of the upper crust, who did not do anything so vulgar as physical work in the out-of-doors. Women went about under parasols in the daytime in England of all places, where they get something like two full days of sun per year.)

Alan E. Brain wrote: We're relying on a "pro-active" defence, aggressively pursuing the money-men and the individual action cells, while leaving ourselves open in order not to compromise too much our personal freedoms.

That's the debate I use in re Iraq most often. Our society is too open to adequately defend; offense is our best and only defense, regardless of how comfortable anybody is with that.

Re Nemesis: Yes I realize I'm feeding trolls but bear with me a moment. Let's say one bright September morning we all woke up and found the temperature in New York City to be 150 degrees F and climbing. Then, a few minutes later, the temperature in Washington DC matched it. An hour later the temp had climed to 180 in NYC and it was just really really hot.

Then, I suspect, we would get a whole lot more pre-emptive on that bad ol' Global Warming thing.

Brent: Philip K. Dick already used that scenario in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Of course that was science fiction. And so is "global warming" -- at least the type of "sudden, Waterworld creating disaster" sort of global warming that these wolf-criers are gabbling about.

Incidentally, what sort of SUVs were Europeans driving 8,000 years ago to cause this catastrophe?

You know, the problem isn't so much that the Kyotoids are hung up on the environment and just want to save the planet, man, as the fact that this sort of meaningless paper-waving will do absolutely nothing to stop any real ecological catastrophe from happening, and in fact threatens to turn people off from the idea of pollution control and sensible environment management altogether. Case in point: the island of Madagascar was, last I heard, being rapidly denuded of trees by its own people, who don't have very many SUVs or dvd players but do need to burn wood for fuel and have clear land to grow food plants on and feed their herds. Of course, due to the land mismanagement, the cleared land is usually rendered useless within a few years, and therefore more land needs to be cleared... and not having a lot of electricity (industry is bad for you anyway, right?) they cook food over good, old-fashioned fire. But burned wood doesn't magically turn back into trees overnight. The Kyoto treaty does absolutely nada in situations like this, which is the sort of downright, in-your-face, up-close-and-personal disaster that makes enviroweenies uncomfortable, since actually dealing with it might get their hemp chinos dirty. So instead of doing something sensible, they wave their hands and gabble about "evil, Western hegemony cars ozone sign Kyoto or be uncool blah blah blah" and ordinary people who might otherwise want to help are revolted and go back to watching their Tivo recordings of the Sex in the City finale. And who can blame them? They've seen that the poverty-stricken Madagascarese ("-ians"? whatever) already have lots of willing helpers who seem to know just what to do.

"Historically, up until at least the late nineteenth century I believe, sun-exposure was considered a hazard of outdoor labor, and thus déclassé for those who wished to be or were members of the upper crust, who did not do anything so vulgar as physical work in the out-of-doors. Women went about under parasols in the daytime in England of all places, where they get something like two full days of sun per year."

Right on Andrea.

This bears repeating, "sun-exposure was considered a hazard of outdoor labor" and not for "members of the upper crust".

Andrea said:
"Historically, up until at least the late nineteenth century I believe, sun-exposure was considered a hazard of outdoor labor, and thus déclassé ...."

Also, the lower classes did not have the leisure time to devote to sun bathing. Outdoor laborers were exposed, of course. But as the Industrial Revolution spread many people worked indoors all day long.

It's only been my generation of my family that's had leisure time for the beach. My parents rarely had time to go, they were too busy working. Same for their parents, etc.. Wasn't until we became middle class (from all the hard work) that my parents even took a vacation.

Most of the family I know about were indoor workers: railroad (inside the trains), factories, office buildings, mines (coal), etc.. My family has the genes/skin for skin cancer, but it was unheard of in my family until recently. It's because nobody had that much time to spend at the beach until recently. Now we can spend time sun bathing and also get skin cancer. (What a deal!!)

Andrea:
Spot on!
If pressed, I'd probably still call myself an environmentalist. What I cannot fathom is how the so-called "Greens" can miss the reality that the most environmentally catastrophic (as well as inhumane) outcome is for expanding populations of dirt-poor peasant farmers, pressing on marginal lands, and lacking the wealth and technology to find alternative employment, reduce pollution, improve agricultural efficiency etc.
Not to mention being able to live half-way decent lives.

Just look at how environmentally damaging the peasant farming of China, the Middle East or Medieval Europe could be, or how polluting heavy industry used to be before we got the wealth and know-how to be able to clean it up.

If global-warming is a problem, then it's technology and innovation and wealth that are going to solve it, not some doomed attempt to coerce the whole planet back to the Sixteenth Century. If the "greens" have their way, Madagascar now = the world in 2050.

And to answer your question, Dwayne, they're not chlorine atoms or chlorine molecules (Cl naturally forms Cl2, just like oxygen naturally occurs as O2), they're chlorine radicals. Radicals are molecules that have somehow lost one electron in a pair- UV radiation being one excellent way to create them. Radicals are extremely unstable and the first thing that generally happens is they rip the missing electron off another molecule, creating a new radical and a chain reaction. Normal ozone formation and destruction in the stratosphere is a very rare example of a stable system involving radicals; the addition of chlorine radicals destroys that stability. Basically, under normal conditions ozone is destroyed on its own but it's also created as fast or faster, but with the addition of chlorine the rate of destruction is far faster than the rate of creation. The CFCs ARE absorbing UV- that's why they're shedding chlorine radicals. Ozone absorbs UV by shedding oxygen radicals, which form new ozone molecules with normal oxygen molecules. The polar stratospheric clouds accelerate depletion by slowing or preventing the formation of normal chlorine molecules (removing the radicals from the system). It's clear if you have a good background in chemistry, confusing if you don't. :) (I do, however, dispute that article's conclusion that the hole will accelerate global warming, since current NASA data indicates troposphere cooling tentatively attributed to the hole.)

The good news is that with the massive reduction in CFC use, the ozone hole should repair itself over time, and start getting smaller instead of bigger in about ten years' time, according to current estimates.

Meanwhile,I'm all tuckered in this fine overcast, cool morning, from doing my bit for global warming.I decided to lead by eaxmple and drove around Melbourne guzzling tank loads of fue, burning it up, clogging the ozone with Co2.Very satisfying.

LabRat, I do understand what you're saying. I have a background in electronics and understand how a molecule with an excess of electrons or a molecule missing some electrons will cause that molecule to take or give electrons from another molecule. It's this principle that's behind doping of semiconducting molecules like gallium arsenide and silicon for transisters, diodes, integrated circuits and other semiconductor type electronic devices.

So, as you were saying, that radical chlorine is ripping off electrons from ozone and upsets that happy equalibrium in the cycle of destruction and creation between UV and oxygen. All of which is completely understood - always has been.

What I don't understand - maybe I wasn't clear enough previously - is that once that chlorine radical steals its electrons, why would it continue to destroy other ozone molecules.

As well, once that chlorine has reacted with ozone, why won't the remaining oxygen molecule immediately react with an oxygen radical to create ozone again?

It works that way because both the ozone and the single oxygen molecule are eliminated in the reaction, leaving molecular oxygen and recycling the chlorine radical. It makes a lot more sense when the reaction isn't wrong- mea culpa.

Ok, if I'm following all this correctly, then that means that at the end of all these reactions we're left with Cl and O2. Oh and somewhere is that CFCl2 molecule floating around, but I guess it's not a big deal.

Because the reaction that turns chlorine monoxide to a chlorine radical and molecular oxygen grabs one of the oxygen radicals that would normally be going into the formation of ozone. Then the chlorine radical goes out and starts the whole process again, so you get far more molecular oxygen than chlorine radicals and ozone formation drops just because you don't have enough ingredients. Ever do experiments in organic chemistry lab where the rate of reaction and the amount of product you get is dependent on the chance your ingredients have of meeting each other?

"Then the chlorine radical goes out and starts the whole process again, so you get far more molecular oxygen than chlorine radicals and ozone formation drops just because you don't have enough ingredients."

I'm sorry, more molecular oxygen than OXYGEN radicals. I just haven't had enough coffee today.

I understood that the chlorine radical resulting from the chlorine monoxide would go and break up other ozone molecules.

Here's were I have problems, "Then the chlorine radical goes out and starts the whole process again, so you get far more molecular oxygen than chlorine radicals and ozone formation drops just because you don't have enough ingredients."

If ozone(O3) is created from molecular oxygen (O2), then why wouldn't the O2 that results from the "ClO + O -> Cl + O2" reaction, start the process of becoming ozone again.

You readily admit that "far more molecular oxygen than chlorine radicals", yet want me to believe that no ozone will be created because you won't "have enough ingredients".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to create two ozone molecules requires 6 oxygen molecules. So if there's far more O2 than Cl, the O2 will O2->O+O then O2+O->O3.

The only situation I can imagine where the reaction does not occur is if there was no UV radiation to split the O2 into O+O.

You then said, "Ever do experiments in organic chemistry lab where the rate of reaction and the amount of product you get is dependent on the chance your ingredients have of meeting each other?"

Sorry, no - I never took chemistry, but I understand what you're describing. It's like ink in water; the ink doesn't disperse immediately. The ink will vein through the water, creating little eddies and streams as it flows.

Yes - yes. I understand. I appreciate you answering my questions.

Maybe it's just me and I'm too ignorant to grasp that you have given me my answer, but as far as I can tell you haven't explained to me why the O2 molecules left over from the destruction of the O3, wouldn't start the process of becoming O3 all over again.

It seems to me, that as soon as the chlorine goes off to find another ozone molecule to break up, the O2 will either hookup with an oxygen radical or will be split into two oxygen radicals by UV radiation. Either way, the process should start all over again.

When the Observer Report first went up I got a copy of the report from Greenpeace. Posted about it on sci.environment.
A few points :
1) This is the sort of thing we pay military planners for." If this happens and then that happens, what should we do ?". I can guarantee that there are other reports in the bowels of the Pentagon that ask " What if global warming is all a crock of sh_t"?. Because that's also what we pay military planners for.
2) Anyone looked at the temperature charts they show ? Quite clearly the report writers show that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age happened : and they do NOT show Mann's " hockey stick " . Who would have thought that Greenpeace would promote such obvious heresy ?
3)There is a comment that poor countries will not be able to adjust to such violent climate change,while the rich ones will be. Gosh, isn't that what Lomborg said ? That poverty is the main problem, that wealth will allow adaptation ? How strange to see the greenies finally agreeing with him.

Finally, just an example about military planning. UK newspapers like to run April Fool stories : a few years ago the Telegraph ran on the front page the 1939 US Army ( not Pentagon, of course, as it had not been built at that point ) plans for the invasion of Canada. And the April Fool joke was that the plans were actually true : because this is what we pay military planners for, to think about and then plan for very unlikely future events : what if Hitler had conquered Britain, and then what if the Empire had gone over to the Nazi side, and what if Canada had acquiesced, and then, what should the US do ?
I hope that you can see, that some part of the military asking " what if " is not the same as some part of the military stating the likelihood of " if ".

I didn't say it wouldn't. However, ozone molecules break up and shed oxygen radicals faster than oxygen molecules; O2 is quite simply more stable than O3. It doesn't STOP the process, it just slows it down enough that the rate of destruction is faster than the rate of consumption. If it STOPPED ozone formation we'd all be fried by now. As it is, there's just relatively small holes localized over the poles where the cycle is naturally disrupted yearly anyway.

"I didn't say it wouldn't. However, ozone molecules break up and shed oxygen radicals faster than oxygen molecules; O2 is quite simply more stable than O3."

That goes without saying, the creation requires UV radiation and is quickly destroyed without that radiation....but why should I look at CFCl3 and Cl as evil interlopers in the ozone creation and destruction reactions that are continually occuring? It appears to me that CFCl3 and Cl add more steps to the ozone creation and destruction reactions, and ultimately doesn't that absorb more UV per cycle ozone creation?

It's already been established that the CFCl3 -> CFCl2 + Cl reaction requires and absorbs the same UV that ozone requires in its creation, so that absorbs some of the UV radiation and prevents it from reaching the surface of the planet.

Now doesn't the other reactions where the Cl destroys the O3 and ultimately results in Cl & O2, doesn't that too use UV radiation in the reactions?

"It doesn't STOP the process, it just slows it down enough that the rate of destruction is faster than the rate of consumption. If it STOPPED ozone formation we'd all be fried by now."

Yes, I knew that, but based on the rhetoric mouthed by environmentalists, you'd think that ozone is a finite element, which CFC's forever destroy. I'm glad you didn't do what I've read others do, and that is claiming that any destruction of ozone is final and irreversible.

"As it is, there's just relatively small holes localized over the poles where the cycle is naturally disrupted yearly anyway."

"There seems to many people here with an extremely shakey understanding of climate science (but nonetheless unshakeable in their conviction that climatologists are a bunch of idiots)."

On the contrary, I don't think climatologists are idiots at all. What I do think is that they are humans and such they are as much prone to self-serving prognosticating as any other person on the planet.

Plenty of smart people have pointed out problems, uncertainties and issues with all the global warming predictions, to which the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) crowd will usually go on an ad hominem attacks on those that raised the questions; just look at what's happened to Bjorn Lomborg.

shaky, I think, without the "e"........but I apologise for the pedantry and express my admiration for the very learned participants in this round. I believe, quite simply (smirk if you will) that our climate is cyclical & that our influence upon it is as insignificant as we are ourselves.

Bjorn Lomborg got what he deserved - banishment from the scientific community. He exploited the issue and science of global warming unscrupulously for personal gain.

Global warming is a very real problem people everywhere need to become more educated about. That's because it's getting worse (speeding up). The Pentagon was right in contracting for the study to be performed. Andrew Marshall was right to leak it to the press.

Check out the organization that sponsored the report. It was founded by Stewart Brand, the California hippie who wrote The Last Whole Earth Catalog back in the 1960's, and proselytized for composting toilets, living in dirt floor yurts, natural childbirth, smoking dope and ritualistic eating of your baby's afterbirth (can you say "yuck"?)

The guy is an aging Back-To-The-Earth-hippie-chick-hippie-dude commune type. He went on to found The Well, a virtual California colony full of Fruits and Nuts on the Internet.

It is not surprising that Mike (above) from Madison, Wisconsin is gung ho behind the report. Madison is in its second childhood with college hippie chicks and dudes picking up where their mom and dad left off. some 25 years ago.

For the dopey math-dumb religious fundamentalist left, hating oneself, hating one's country, and hating one's culture are positively ennobling. And the Church of Global Warming lets you hate all three!! Have you been saved by the Mother Goddess yet? (ommmmmm ... ommmmm ... ommmm)

Don't believe me? Search for "Stewart Brand" and the names of the authors of the Secret Pentagon Report. Search for "Stewart Brand" and the "Last Whole Earth Catalog".

This post is in response to Dwayne's post made February 23, 2004, in which he said: "... the only other thing that will convince me that anthropogenic global warming is real is when I see a regional trend - no less than 5 years - where each season is warmer than the one that preceded it."

Below is the annual globally averaged temperature data from the National Climate Data Center in the U.S.. Seasonal data can be found on the Birds and Landscapes listserv reference at the end of this message.

As for the report that the Pentagon ordered, I don't buy the projection that things will all of a sudden get cold in Europe if the ocean currents stop. It's the air circulation pattern (prevailing winds coming from the southwest) that results in Europe being warmer in winter than it would be in the absence of those winds. http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf

However, I do believe things will get progressively warmer in Europe, and elsewhere, as a result of the building up of higher and higher volumes of heat-capturing (greenhouse) gases in the atmosphere -- mostly from fossil fuel burning in for energy in the industrial, commercial and residential sectors, and especially in the transportation sector in the U.S., in which the many millions of cars, trucks, jets, trains and boats each burn petroleum individually every day.

For each gallon of fuel burned, approximately 20 pounds of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere, where it remains for an average "lifespan" of 120 years, holding more and more radiant solar heat close to the earth's surface.

Because of the long length of time in which greenhouse gas volumes "hang" in the atmosphere (they're invisible), it is important not to wait until the atmosphere is laden with them and global warming is causing severe harm before we begin to drastically reduce annual emissions. If we do that, it is likely the problem will get worse before it gets better. (Or if positive feedbacks in the system kick in, temperatures and humidities could rise much faster).

Global Land Temperature (GLT) in 2003 was 0.83°C (1.50°F) above average (1880-2003). The 1880-2003 annually averaged land temperature was 8.5°C (47.3°F).
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov

Data used for Table 1 was obtained from The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in NOAA. NCDC monthly globally averaged GLT data was based on National Weather Service (NWS) air temperature data measured at NWS climate stations, 2 meters
above the ground surface.

What's most frightening about all of this is how "legitimate" media sources actually distorted the nature of the report. No doubt my European friends will soon be trumpeting this as grounds for their anti-bush stance. I can't wait.

Remember the Japanese unveiling some new supercomputer 3? years ago that was 9? times more powerful then anything the U.S. had. Imagine the shock, but they said it was going to be used for weather prediction... makes sense now...